General practice faces a staffing problem that is not going away. Over 63 million patients are now registered with GP practices in England, yet the number of GPs continues to fall, leaving practices searching for ways to handle their workload without burning out their existing doctors.
One solution that has become increasingly common is bringing a clinical pharmacist into the team to take on medication-related work that would otherwise fall to GPs, helping practices manage workload safely while improving medicines optimisation.
Key takeaways:
Clinical pharmacists in general practice reduce GP workload by taking ownership of medicines-related care.
Evidence shows improvements in prescribing safety and measurable cost savings.
Practices using pharmacists effectively integrate them into clinical workflows, not as an add-on.
Why GP Workload is Increasingly Unsustainable
The demand on general practice is substantial, with NHS England data showing that practices delivered around 31 million appointments in November 2025 alone, which works out to roughly 1.55 million appointments every working day across England.
A significant portion of GP time goes on work involving medicines. Repeat prescriptions need checking, patients ring with questions about side effects, blood test results need reviewing to ensure medications remain safe and long-term conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure require regular adjustments to treatment.
Pharmacists train for years specifically in medicines, drug interactions and treatment protocols, which makes them well suited to this work. A study published in the British Journal of General Practice examined what happened when practices brought in clinical pharmacists and technicians, found measurable reductions in total medicine costs and decreases in opioid prescribing rates, suggesting that practices were not just saving time but also prescribing more safely.
What Does a Pharmacist Do in a GP Practice?
A pharmacist working in general practice operates quite differently from one in a high street chemist, with their role being primarily clinical rather than dispensing-focused. They see patients directly, have full access to medical records and work as part of the practice team alongside GPs and nurses.
Medication reviews are central to the job, particularly for patients taking multiple medicines. Older people and those with several long-term conditions need regular checks to ensure their medications remain appropriate and are not causing problems. A pharmacist can sit with these patients for 20 to 30 minutes, work through each medicine they take, check for interactions or side effects and identify anything that should be stopped or changed. This is time that GPs rarely have available in their standard consultations.
Prescription queries come in throughout the day and can fragment GP time considerably. When a patient calls about nausea from a new tablet or a community pharmacist has a question about a dose, a practice pharmacist can deal with it directly rather than pulling a doctor away from consultations.
Long-term condition management also suits pharmacists well, particularly those with independent prescribing qualifications who can adjust medications themselves. A patient with well-controlled type 2 diabetes may not need to see a GP at every review, and a pharmacist can check their blood sugar control, make any necessary medication adjustments and refer to the GP only when something complex arises.
Safety monitoring adds another layer of value to the role. Certain medicines require regular blood tests, including lithium, methotrexate and various blood pressure drugs, and a pharmacist can review incoming results, flag any problems and ensure patients receive the checks they need on time.
What Evidence Supports Pharmacists in General Practice?
Research continues to demonstrate measurable benefits from having pharmacists in general practice. One evaluation of pharmacist activity in a clinical commissioning group tracked their work over nine months and found that pharmacists made over 23,000 interventions, generating savings exceeding one million pounds through stopping unnecessary medicines, switching to cheaper alternatives and identifying safety issues before they caused harm.
The time savings matter as much as the financial ones, because when pharmacists take on medication work, GPs can see more patients or spend longer with those who have complex needs. Research into the national pilot scheme found that patients appreciated longer appointments with someone who understood their medicines and valued having time to ask questions about their treatment.
How Practices Organise This
Different practices take different approaches depending on their size and circumstances. Some employ a pharmacist directly, either full-time or part-time depending on their list size, while others share a pharmacist across several practices within their Primary Care Network to spread the cost while still gaining access to support.
The Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme helps with funding, and NHS Digital data from September 2025 recorded over 7,100 pharmacists and 2,900 pharmacy technicians working in primary care and general practice, with numbers continuing to grow as more PCNs take advantage of the scheme. This growth reflects a deliberate shift in how the NHS expects practices and PCNs to manage medicines and workforce capacity.
How well the pharmacist integrates into the team affects the results considerably. They need access to clinical systems, somewhere appropriate to see patients and clear working relationships with the GPs and nurses around them. Starting with specific tasks such as medication reviews for care home residents and expanding from there tends to produce better outcomes than trying to cover everything from day one.
What This Means for Practices
The pressures on general practice are not temporary, with patient numbers rising while GP numbers remain under strain. Practices that find ways to use their workforce efficiently will cope better than those that continue trying to funnel everything through their doctors.
For any practice considering clinical pharmacist or technician support, the question worth asking is how much of the current GP workload involves medicines. The answer is usually substantial and redirecting that work to someone trained specifically in medicines makes sense for the practice, for patients and for the GPs trying to manage their lists.